It’s March, NYRBC readers! Through the dreary drudging of the beginning of spring are crepuscular rays of warmth and beauty. We knew we wanted this month’s theme to reflect the feel of Philadelphia March while, of course, honoring Women’s History Month; however, we hit a bit of a roadblock in deciding this month’s theme. A prism refracts overwhelming, blinding beams of light into almost unbelievable scatterings of shapes and colors that, while beautiful, can be distortions or painful misrepresentations. How exactly to incorporate these huge, non-homogenous realities found in womanhood and our very existence? We decided to embrace the idea of the "Prismatic" for this month's theme, and found our answer partially in a poem of beloved writer and activist June Jordan’s entitled “These Poems”:

These poems
they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
whoever you are
and
are you ready?

These words
they are stones in the water
running away

These skeletal lines
they are desperate arms for my longing and love.

I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me

whoever you are
whoever I may become.